Hi, just thought I'd share. Keith Parsons put out a new documentary recently on this topic called "This Life, Past Life"

I found it pretty interesting.

I can't say for sure one way or the other on reincarnation. Some things I just think I "know" with relations to past lives, yet nothing can be verified - so it's not an area I've focused on too much. I spend more time on what I can find out for myself now, vs going backwards in time

My personal view about it all is very simple. I was incarnated into this life. One day I will be discarnated from this life. When that happens, I will be alive in a non-carnate life, where I plan to stay.

I don't belief I ever existed before I incarnated about 65 years ago: and even if I did, who and what and where I was and accomplished is of less interest to me than what I ate for breakfast on this date, 40 years ago!

I find myself inclining ever-more to the belief that we create our own reality, both here and hereafter, via our thoughts. Therefore I'm turning my thoughts less in the direction of wondering whether reincarnation occurs, and more in the direction of resisting the possibility of its occurring to me.

I view reincarnation the way the Eastern religions view it. it's about as appealing to me as the concept of hell-fire!

I think that's a great outlook. knowing the past is good, but at the same time it should never outweigh the present. I've spent a lot of my life living either in the past or the future.....and most of it is not productive. now, I can personally experience things related to life after death but I can't experience reincarnation now......so it will always just be a possibility.

and since we never forget what we knew, know, or will know - it doesn't really mater (or not something to be as concerned with) - its more like a hypothetical discussion in which the variables change depending on who you talk to. Not the same as other areas of research.

I have long been persuaded that we may experience more than one earth life but that the situation is not mandatory.

However appalled we may be now at the prospect of returning to this world, I suggest it's almost certain we'll see things somewhat differently when we can see 'the big picture' - or at least much more of it - than we do while we're in the body.

For all we know our present lives may be simply the latest of several. That we don't know about the others doesn't negate that possibility.

I have to admit, though, that my naturally skeptical nature makes me snicker at the "evidence" most reincarnationists throw at you. Either they offer you a religious argument in favor of it - "look at the Hindus and Buddhists: they believe in it!" -- this usually coming from people who would laugh you to scorn if you used a similar argument to support a Christian belief : or they "just KNOW" that they lived in Roman /medieval / Victorian / whatever times: or else they "remember" being. . . Napoleon, Queen Mary, Julius Caesar, Henry Ford. . . take your pick. . . or if not that, it's some unnamed person who was rich, powerful, learned, sexy . . . in a world where most people who have lived and died have been none of these things.

What was it Douglas Hume said about all the former Napoleons, Queen Elizabeths, and King Louis's he's met: he wishes that just once he could meet a former plain old John Smith!

Just in the past week, for example, I've met a former "Viking Berserker" : not just a plain-vanilla Viking, mind you, but a Viking BERSERKER. . . and, the Viceroy of Pharoah Thutmose III!

It's all certainly evidence of at least one thing, that's for certain: that there are a lot of bored people out there with very vivid imaginations!

Rather like my persuasion about survival not being based on personal evidential mediumship, my persuasion about reincarnation doesn't come from vivid claims based often on so-called past-life recall.

I take your points above, though, but diligent researching of the accounts might also reveal more mundane ones. They mostly get little publicity!

I'm sanguine about the whole business of what comes next after we die. I probably don't have long to wait before I get to find out first-hand and if we're all wrong we'll never know anyway! If we're at least partly right I might just remember what I got wrong but I suspect it won't much matter.

Reincarnation might occur in some cases, if not as a general rule. Perhaps a person who lives a totally-botched, evil life asks for a chance to go back for another try?

Or a case of a child who is aborted, miscarried, stillborn, or dies as an infant. Rather than living again as someone else, it would be more appropriate to say that they are being given a second chance to live a first life. I'm thinking of cases like Mandy Seabrook.

The Greater World Christian Spiritualists believe that we live countless lives, but only once on the earth plane. Other lives would be in other places or dimensions: each life being in a more spiritual dimension.

This strikes me as a more progressive view -- and Spiritualists believe in spiritual progress -- than going around many times on the same plane of existence.

We also need to consider that alleged memories of past lives may be memories of someone else's life: that we are being overshadowed by another entity, or by their residual energy.

I think that Patton's beliefs are more easily explainable on psychological than on spiritualistic grounds. He spent his life obsessed with military history, and became in his own mind the 6 historical characters, or characters in the historical eras, with which he was most fascinated.

Ignoring for the moment other physical dimensions it's arguable that the seemingly unique experiences we may have in this one may remain an attraction after our current incarnation, its benefit being in enhancing our spiritual progression. We're taught that's something we'll feel as important after we pass over.

What we can never know as incarnates is how things will appear - perhaps how they did appear before our present lives - from the etheric dimension(s). We also can't know how we'll feel about the situation when we're freed of the constraints of our physical shells and the restricted brain/mind system we're stuck with.

I understand how unattractive the thoughts of returning to undertake another human existence appear and how illogical it may presently seem. We may of course feel similarly about things after we pass over but until then we just don't know. Accounts of apparent past life recall / reincarnation are interesting but haven't influenced me. I am quite sceptical about many although some are remarkably detailed and appear to be evidence. To me, though, the most important issue is that nowhere have I heard anything that persuades me that we are compelled to experience multiple physical existences.

Not long to wait before I find out if I'm right, assuming we survive death in the first place. If we don't we'll never know that we don't and all these discussions will be academic!

As you say, Mac: we can't be sure how appealing a return to earth might be, when viewed from the etheric perspective, when we're operating from the earthly one. But from the earth perspective, I don't fancy a return here in another life: any more than I'd like to turn the clock back in my present life, and be forced to live the past 50 or 60 years again.

People say they "wish they could do it all over again": or that they "wouldn't make the same mistakes this time". I don't wish I could, or had to, relive again: and given another chance, if we didn't make the same mistakes, we'd just make new ones.

The beauty of believing in life after bodily death is that if we're right we can say "I told you so" : if we're wrong, we'll never know it. Whereas unbelievers will never know it, if they were right!

"The beauty of believing in life after bodily death is that if we're right we can say "I told you so" : if we're wrong, we'll never know it. Whereas unbelievers will never know it, if they were right! "

Left Behind wrote:I think that Patton's beliefs are more easily explainable on psychological than on spiritualistic grounds. He spent his life obsessed with military history, and became in his own mind the 6 historical characters, or characters in the historical eras, with which he was most fascinated.

Then again: there are also the theories of spirit overshadowing, and of out of body travel. Patton may have been so obsessed with ancient battles that he attracted discarnate veterans of these conflicts. Or he might have been able to transcend time and space and travel to the battles themselves. When he said that "he'd been there", he may very well have been there: but as the spirit of General Patton, not as an incarnate combatant of the time.

Left Behind wrote:I think that Patton's beliefs are more easily explainable on psychological than on spiritualistic grounds. He spent his life obsessed with military history, and became in his own mind the 6 historical characters, or characters in the historical eras, with which he was most fascinated.

Then again: there are also the theories of spirit overshadowing, and of out of body travel. Patton may have been so obsessed with ancient battles that he attracted discarnate veterans of these conflicts. Or he might have been able to transcend time and space and travel to the battles themselves. When he said that "he'd been there", he may very well have been there:but as the spirit of General Patton, not as an incarnate combatant of the time.

If the animating spirit of the human being General Patton - or any other individual come to that - could indeed transcend time and space in such a way, why could that spirit not also have taken part in the actual battle, in the guise of another human being?

If it were possible to return to a state where a battle, or some other event, was still active, why couldn't one become involved in it? Or is the event some form of three dimensional video recording? If it is, where is it being 'stored'?

There seems little point in reliving over and again something that would have ceased to be of interest or value now.The question of whether this would be possible as every such 'chapter' in Life seems hermetically sealed and separate also arises.So much to learn, even more to understand!

hiorta wrote:There seems little point in reliving over and again something that would have ceased to be of interest or value now.The question of whether this would be possible as every such 'chapter' in Life seems hermetically sealed and separate also arises.So much to learn, even more to understand!

There are some who claim that so-called chapters in life all happen concurrently, that everything is happening at the same time, all in the same 'time frame', not linear time as we understand it.....

hiorta wrote:Sometimes it does mac. Ever get the fleeting sensation of a simultaneous Life?

Not that I've recognised.

But it's not an occasional situation, according to my contacts, rather the nature of all worlds we inhabit. It's also said we manifest only a small part of our total selves, the remainder remaining in the etheric levels and - presumably - experiencing lives there and maybe elsewhere at the same time as life incarnate in the physical is experienced.

Is that what our teachers and guides have also told us? If so then maybe I've forgotten, or failed to understand, what Silver Birch and others have said.....

It does seem that the importance of realising that there is no death in store for us lies not so much in what that may mean for the individual, but that this knowledge then continues to lead us to further continual unfolding of our potential.

hiorta wrote:It does seem that the importance of realising that there is no death in store for us lies not so much in what that may mean for the individual, but that this knowledge then continues to lead us to further continual unfolding of our potential.

Left Behind wrote:I think that Patton's beliefs are more easily explainable on psychological than on spiritualistic grounds. He spent his life obsessed with military history, and became in his own mind the 6 historical characters, or characters in the historical eras, with which he was most fascinated.

Then again: there are also the theories of spirit overshadowing, and of out of body travel. Patton may have been so obsessed with ancient battles that he attracted discarnate veterans of these conflicts. Or he might have been able to transcend time and space and travel to the battles themselves. When he said that "he'd been there", he may very well have been there:but as the spirit of General Patton, not as an incarnate combatant of the time.

If the animating spirit of the human being General Patton - or any other individual come to that - could indeed transcend time and space in such a way, why could that spirit not also have taken part in the actual battle, in the guise of another human being?

If it were possible to return to a state where a battle, or some other event, was still active, why couldn't one become involved in it? Or is the event some form of three dimensional video recording? If it is, where is it being 'stored'?

I doubt that a time-traveling discarnate spirit would be able to have much influence on the physical environment that he entered. You hear stories about Near Death experiencers, OOBExperiencers, and spirits speaking through trance mediums telling how they hovered near loved ones but were unable to make themselves seen or heard. . . how they could pass through walls but not open doors. . . they touched people but their hands went right through them. . .

. . . then again, going contrary to THAT idea, we also hear stories of poltergeists who can throw objects across the room, or keep people awake with all the noise they make. And let's not forget that it all started with raps and table-turning.

hiorta wrote:It does seem that the importance of realising that there is no death in store for us lies not so much in what that may mean for the individual, but that this knowledge then continues to lead us to further continual unfolding of our potential.

For some, yes, but apparently not for others.

Yes, I think that each person gets out of it what they seek from it. For some that might be consolation in bereavement. For others, a complete religion. For others, something in between.

hiorta wrote:It does seem that the importance of realising that there is no death in store for us lies not so much in what that may mean for the individual, but that this knowledge then continues to lead us to further continual unfolding of our potential.

For some, yes, but apparently not for others.

Yes, I think that each person gets out of it what they seek from it. For some that might be consolation in bereavement. For others, a complete religion. For others, something in between.

Left Behind wrote:I think that Patton's beliefs are more easily explainable on psychological than on spiritualistic grounds. He spent his life obsessed with military history, and became in his own mind the 6 historical characters, or characters in the historical eras, with which he was most fascinated.

Then again: there are also the theories of spirit overshadowing, and of out of body travel. Patton may have been so obsessed with ancient battles that he attracted discarnate veterans of these conflicts. Or he might have been able to transcend time and space and travel to the battles themselves. When he said that "he'd been there", he may very well have been there:but as the spirit of General Patton, not as an incarnate combatant of the time.

If the animating spirit of the human being General Patton - or any other individual come to that - could indeed transcend time and space in such a way, why could that spirit not also have taken part in the actual battle, in the guise of another human being?

If it were possible to return to a state where a battle, or some other event, was still active, why couldn't one become involved in it? Or is the event some form of three dimensional video recording? If it is, where is it being 'stored'?

I doubt that a time-traveling discarnate spirit would be able to have much influence on the physical environment that he entered. You hear stories about Near Death experiencers, OOBExperiencers, and spirits speaking through trance mediums telling how they hovered near loved ones but were unable to make themselves seen or heard. . . how they could pass through walls but not open doors. . . they touched people but their hands went right through them. . .

One issue, Jim, is that there is no time through which, along which, we can travel anyway - well that's what current thinking by some of my contacts is. All things are happening, all lives are being lived, concurrently and outside of the linear time constraints we experience in this world. I'm not claiming they've got it right just saying what they tell me and I have no arguments with which to challenge their assertions.

Left Behind wrote:. . . then again, going contrary to THAT idea, we also hear stories of poltergeists who can throw objects across the room, or keep people awake with all the noise they make. And let's not forget that it all started with raps and table-turning.

There is so much we don't understand no matter how familiar accounts of such happenings are. It's one reason I listen to the ideas of others more nowadays as in my 34th year 'in the spooks' I realise the depth of my ignorance. I don't just accept without questioning but neither do I reject when I don't have guidance.